We asked area theatre companies to tell us what they were most looking forward to in 2020. Their answers surprised us! Contributors: 4615 Theatre Company . American Ensemble Theater . American Shakespeare Theatre Company . Arena Stage . Avant Bard Theatre . Brave Spirits Theatre . Capital Fringe . CulturalDC . Folger Theatre . Happenstance […]
Archives for December 2019
Make a difference today with your 2019 donation to DC Theatre Scene
Dear readers, We know you’re busy, so we’ll be brief. Here’s why we hope you will make a 2019 tax deductible donation to DC Theatre Scene. In 2019, we wrote 643 articles: reviews, interviews and news of theatre in our area. (More on what we learned here) We’re excited to have added new categories. Roots […]
Victor Shargai, a life in the theatre
Victor Shargai, an actor, costume designer, interior designer, philanthropist, and Washington theater leader died on Christmas Eve at the age of 83 after a brief illness. Shargai was the longtime Board Chair of the Helen Hayes Awards, and helped lead it into its present incarnation as theaterWashington. He was born Sharaga, but he changed it […]
Reflection on Black Nativity, and the power of faith and forgiveness in today’s world
As a Person of Faith, I have become more disenchanted with how Christmas is celebrated as I’ve gotten older. The commercialization of the holiday promotes materialism over caring about one another and any “loving humanity” paradigm. I see the overworked waiting for a break. I see the gap between the “haves” and the “have nots” […]
Surprise hit show of 2019
This year, as we’ve already reported, 26 productions were so popular at the box office they earned extensions and 5 productions were co-produced and played or will play in each company’s theatres. But for one, the response was so overwhelming, the producing company not only found another location, but sees demand to produce it in 2020. […]
Our 22 most memorable performances of 2019
One last standing ovation for these performers whose work quite simply blew us away this year. Ian Merill Peakes, Amadeus, Folger Theatre In Amadeus, Ian Merill Peakes brought Peter Shaffer’s Salieri to brilliant, anguished life. He was a childishly sweet-scarfing confidant explaining to future generations the way his young court-rival genius, Mozart, curdled Salieri’s heart and activated […]
Review: Jersey Boys tour adds a holiday gift to their show at The National
Some music gets inside your head and stays there. Think “Sherry”, “Big Girls Don’t Cry”, “My Eyes Adored You”. It’s pretty much a guarantee you can at least hum at least one of these. After all, you’ve been hearing them on the radio since the early 1960s. That’s because the music of Frankie Valli and […]
18 greatest moments on New York stages in 2019
In a year that has ended so dramatically off-stage, and during which so many people talked dismissively about “political theater” — when they didn’t mean anything actually happening in a work of art — it’s good to celebrate the memorable moments that happened nightly on New York stages. These were moments that were memorable as a […]
Our Most Memorable Operas and Dance Performances of 2019
Prufrock, Chamber Dance Project Leading my most memorable performances for 2019 would have to be the Chamber Dance Project’s premiere of “Prufrock” in June at Sidney Harman Hall. Choreographed by the company’s founder and artistic director, Diane Coburn Bruning, “Prufrock” turned five dancers into a teeming but lonely city of suited, bowler-hatted strivers running, colliding, […]
Review: Bartlett Sher’s My Fair Lady, a fresh, loverly production with a curiously unsatisfying end
Everyone has a special memory of their first musical. Mine was My Fair Lady. It had opened in London in 1958 on Drury Lane after taking Broadway by storm, and, as a young child living there, I already knew the tunes when I was taken to see Julie Andrews and Rex Harrison. Last night as […]
Our 20 most memorable shows of 2019
What matters most, when all the theatrical offerings for 2019 have been made, is what lingers in the minds and hearts of the audience. We asked our writers and the Gary Maker Audience Award recipients to think back over the year, and tell us their most unforgettable shows. Here they are in alphabetical order. Ain’t […]
Adam Grupper plays a radicalized Alfred P. Doolittle in My Fair Lady
When director Bartlett Sher mounted an acclaimed production of the classic Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center last year, it reminded many theater lovers why – with songs like “I Could Have Danced All Night,” “The Rain in Spain” and “Wouldn’t It Be Loverly – this musical remains so dear to […]
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